He held her stare a moment longer, then dropped his eyes back to the map. ‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s like a lion. It sticks close to the zebras.’
‘We don’t have any zebras here.’
She halted and gave him a look.
‘Oh, right,’ he said, subdued. ‘But running around down there in the dark? You gotta be kiddin’. We got no overheads once you get out of the main shaft here.’
‘How about flashlights?’
‘Sure. We got six thousand of them. And rechargeable batteries. But no bulbs. Somebody forgot that little detail. I told ya, nothin’ works.’
‘What about torches? Do we have the capability of making fire? Most humans have enjoyed that privilege since the Stone Age.’
The old vertical shaft stretched up and down into darkness, the ladder welded to its interior filthy with carboniferous grime and accumulated gunk. Damp air ascended languidly from the black depths, thick in Ripley’s nostrils as she leaned out of the corridor and aimed her torch downward. No bottom was visible, not had she expected to see one.
They’d started in through the tunnel where Murphy had been killed, past the huge ventilator blades, which Aaron had shut down prior to their departure. She sniffed, wrinkled her nose. The rising air was more than damp; it was pungent with rotting vegetation and the sharp tang of recycled chemicals.
‘What’s down there?’
Aaron crowded close behind her. ‘Air and water purification and recirculation.’
‘Which explains the stink. Fusion?’
‘Yeah, but sealed away. Everything operates on automatics. A couple of techs from the supply ship run a status check every six months.’ He grinned. ‘You don’t think they’d trust the maintenance details of a functioning fusion plant to the delicate ministrations of a bunch of prisoners and a couple of prison administrators with general degrees, do you?’
She didn’t smile back. ‘Nothing the Company does would surprise me.’ Holding on to the edge of the opening she aimed the torch upward, played the light over the smooth metal walls.
‘What’s upstairs?’
‘Low-tech stuff. Storage chambers, most of ‘em empty now.
Cleaned out when Weyland-Yutani closed down the mine.
Service access ways. Power and water conduits. All the tunnels and shafts are bigger then they need to be. With all the drilling and cording equipment at hand the engineers were able to make it easy on themselves. They built everything oversized.’
He paused. ‘You think it might have gone up there somewhere?’
‘It would naturally choose a large, comfortable chamber for a nest, and it likes to keep above its. . prey. Drop down from above rather than come up from below. Also, the upper levels are closer to the prison habitat. That’s where it’ll expect us to be holed up. If we’re lucky we might be able to come up behind it. If we’re unlucky. .’
‘Yeah?’ Aaron prompted,
‘We might be able to come up behind it.’ She swung out onto the ladder and began climbing.
Not only was the ladder thick with encrusted grime, but the moist air rising from below had stimulated the growth of local algae and other microorganisms. The rungs were slippery and uneven. She made sure to grip the side of the ladder firmly with her free hand as she ascended.
The shaft intersected one or more cross-corridors approxi-mately every three metres. At each level she shoved her torch inside, illuminating each tunnel for a respectable distance before resuming her ascent.
While he was trying to watch Ripley, Aaron’s concentration slipped along with his foot. Behind him Dillon quickly looped his left arm around the ladder and caught the flailing ankle with his other hand, shoving the assistant super’s boot back onto the nearest rung.
‘You all right up there?’ he inquired in a terse whisper.
‘Fine,’ Aaron replied, albeit a little shakily. ‘Just keep that torch out of my ass.’
‘Funny you should mention that,’ the big man replied in the half darkness. ‘I’ve spent years dreaming of doing just that.’
‘Save it for another time, okay?’ Aaron hurried himself, not wanting Ripley to get dangerously far ahead.
‘One thing more, man,’ Dillon murmured.
The assistant superintendent glanced back down. ‘What now?’
‘Anytime you want to trade places, you let me know.’
‘In your dreams.’ Despite their circumstances each man mustered a fraternal grin of understanding. Then they resumed climbing, the brief feeling of camaraderie swept away in the desperation and anxiety of their situation.
Ripley glanced down, wondering what they were talking about. It was good that they could manage to smile under such conditions. She wished she could share in their amusement, but knew she could not. She was much too conscious of what might lie ahead of them. Inhaling resignedly, she ascended the next step and aimed her light into still another opening.
Straight into the face of the creature.
If her fingers hadn’t contracted in terror she surely would have fallen off the ladder as she screamed. Reflexively she swung her torch. It struck the horror square atop the gleaming black head. . which crumbled into pieces on contact.
‘What. . what is it?’ Aaron was yelling below her.
She ignored him as she fought to regain her equilibrium.
Only then did she pull herself up the ladder and step off into the tunnel.
Together the three stared at the collapsed, dried-out husk of the adult alien.
‘Ugly sucker, ain’t it?’ Dillon volunteered.
Ripley knelt to examine the cast-off shell. Her fingers trembled slightly as she touched it, then steadied. It was perfectly harmless, a shadow of an enigma. There was nothing there. The skull where her torch had struck had been empty inside. Experimentally she gave the remainder of the shell a light push and the massive, streamlined form tumbled over onto its side. She straightened.
‘What is it?’ Aaron asked her. He prodded the husk with his foot.
‘It’s shed its skin, moulted somehow.’ She looked sharply up the tunnel. ‘This is a new one. I’ve never seen this before. Not at this stage of development.’
‘What’s it mean?’ Dillon muttered.
‘Can’t say. No precedent. One thing we can be sure of, though. It’s bigger now.’
‘How much bigger?’ Aaron joined her in peering up the dark passageway.
‘That depends,’ Ripley murmured.
‘On what?’
‘On what it’s become.’ She started forward, holding her light out in front of her as she pushed her way past him.
Something inside her urged her on, making her increase rather than slow the pace. She hardly paused long enough to shine her torch down the side passages that branched off the main tunnel. The discovery of the alien husk had charged her with the same sort of relentless determination that had enabled her to survive the devastation of Acheron. Determination, and a growing anger. She found herself thinking of Jonesy. No one wonder she and the cat had survived the Nostromo.
Curiosity and a talent for survival were two of the skills they’d shared.
Jonesy was gone now, a victim of the time distortions made necessary by space travel. No more cat-nightmares for him.
Only she was left to deal with life, and all the memories.
‘Slow up.’ Aaron had to break into a jog to catch up with her.
He held up the map, then gestured ahead. ‘Almost there.’
She looked at him. ‘I hope this was worth the climb. What happened to all the damn lifts in this place?’
‘You kidding? Deactivated when the installation was closed down. Why would a bunch of prisoners need to be in this sector anyway?’ He started forward, taking the lead.
They walked another hundred metres before the tunnel opened up into a much larger passageway, one wide and high enough to accommodate vehicles as well as men. The assistant superintendent stopped next to the far wall, holding his tor
ch out to illuminate a sign welded to the metal.
TOXIC WASTE STORAGE
THIS CHAMBER HERMETICALLY SECURED
NO ACCESS WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION
Rating B-8 or Higher Required 146
‘Well, well. What do we have here?’ For the first time in days Ripley allowed herself to feel a twinge of hope.
‘There’s more than a dozen of these scattered around the facility.’ Aaron was bending to study the detailed inscription below the plate. ‘This is the closest one to our living quarters.’
He tapped the wall with his torch and sparks dribbled to the floor.
‘They were gonna shove a lot of heavy-duty waste in here.
Refining by-products, that sort of thing. Some of these are full and permanently sealed, others partially filled. Cheaper, easier, and safer than stuffing the junk into drums and dumping it out in space.
‘This one’s never been used. Maybe because it’s so close to the habitat areas. Or maybe they just never got around to it, closed up shop before they needed the room. I’ve been inside. It’s clean as a whistle in there.’
Ripley studied the wall. ‘What’s the access like?’
‘Pretty much what you’d expect for a storage facility carrying this rating.’ He led her around to the front.
The door was scratched and filthy, but still impressive. She noted the almost invisible seams at the corners. ‘This is the only way in or out?’
Aaron nodded. ‘That’s right. I checked the stats before we came down. Entrance is just big enough for a small loader-transporter with driver and cargo. Ceiling, walls, and floor are six feet thick, solid ceramocarbide steel. So’s the door. All controls and active components are external, or embedded in the matrix itself.’
‘Let’s make sure we’ve got this right. You get something in there and close the door, no way it can get out?’
Aaron grunted confidently. ‘Right. No fuckin’ way. That sucker is tight. According to the specs it’ll hold a perfect vacuum. Nothin’ bigger than a neutrino could slip through.
That ceramocarbide stuff even dissipates lasers. You’d need a controlled nuclear explosion to cut your way in.’
‘You sure this thing is still operational?’
He indicated a nearby control box. ‘Why don’t you find out?’
She moved forward and broke the thin seal that covered the enclosure. The lid flipped down, exposing several controls. She studied them for a moment, then thumbed a large green button.
The immense door didn’t so much slide aside as appear to vanish silently into the wall. She cycled it again, admiring the smooth play of forces that could shift so much mass with such speed and ease. The prisoners were similarly impressed. The efficiency of the long-dormant technology lifted their spirits considerably.
Beyond the open barrier was a slick-walled, empty chamber.
An ephemeral coating of dust covered the floor. It would accommodate several full-grown aliens with ease.
‘Let me see the map.’ Aaron handed her the sheet and her index finger drew patterns on the plastic. ‘We’re here?’ He leaned close and nodded. ‘Administration’s here, assembly hall up this corridor?’
‘You got it. Fast, too,’ he added admiringly.
‘I owe the fact that I’m still alive to an understanding of spatial relationships.’ She tapped the sheet. ‘If we can get it to chase us down these passageways, here and here, then close these off one at a time, we might get it inside.’ The three of them stared into the storage chamber.
Dillon looked back at her. ‘Lemme get this straight. You wanna burn it down and outta the pipes, force it here, slam the door, and trap its ass?’
She spoke without looking up from the map. ‘Ummm.’
‘And you’re looking for help from us Y-chromo boys.’
‘You got something better to do?’
‘Why should we put our asses on the line for you?’
She finally glanced up at him, her eyes steely. ‘Your asses are already on the line. The only question is what you’re going to do about it.’
X
Accompanied by prisoner David, Aaron showed Ripley through the vast storage chamber. When they reached the section where the drums were stored, he paused and pointed.
‘This is where we keep it. I don’t know what this shit’s called.’
‘Quinitricetyline,’ David supplied helpfully.
‘I knew that,’ the assistant superintendent grumbled as he checked his notepad. ‘Okay. I’m off to work out the section assignments with Dillon for the paintbrush team. David, you get these drums organized, ready to move.’ He turned and headed in the direction of the main corridor.
‘Right, Eight-five,’ David called after him.
‘Don’t call me that!’ Aaron vanished into the darkness of the distant corridor.
Ripley examined the drums. They were slightly corroded and obviously hadn’t been touched in some time, but otherwise appeared intact.
‘What’s this “Eight-five” thing?’
David put gloved hands on the nearest container. ‘Lot of the prisoners used to call him that. We got his personnel charts out of the computer a few years ago. It’s his IQ.’ He grinned as he started to roll the drum.
Ripley stood and watched. ‘He seems to have a lot of faith in this stuff. What’s your opinion?’
The prisoner positioned the drum for loading. ‘Hell, I’m just a dumb watchman, like the rest of the guys here. But I did see a drum of this crap fall into a beachhead bunker once. Blast put a tug in dry dock for seventeen weeks. Great stuff.’
In another part of the storage chamber prisoners Troy and Arthur sorted through the mass of discarded electronics components. Troy shoved a glass bead into the cylinder he was holding, thumbed the switch, then disgustedly wrenched the bead free and began hunting for another.
‘Goddamn it. One fucking bulb in two thousand works.’
His companion looked up from his own search. ‘Hey, it could be a lot worse. We mighta got the paintbrush detail.’ He tried a bead in his own tube, hit the switch. To his astonishment and delight, it lit.
The two men filled the air duct with little room to spare, slathering the interior surface with the pungent quinitricetyline.
‘This shit smells awful,’ Prisoner Kevin announced for the hundredth time. His companion barely deigned to reply.
‘I’ve told you already; don’t breathe it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Fuckin’ fumes.’
‘I’m in a fuckin’ pipe with it. How can I keep from breathing it?’
Outside the toxic waste storage chamber other men were dumping buckets of the QTC and spreading it around as best they could, with brooms and mops and, where those were lacking, with their booted feet.
In the corridor Dillon was waiting with Ripley. Everything was proceeding according to plan, though whether the plan would proceed according to plan remained to be seen.
He glanced toward her, analyzed the expression on her face.
Not that he was particularly sensitive, but he’d seen a lot of life.
‘You miss the doc, right?’
‘I didn’t know him very well,’ she muttered by way of reply.
‘I thought you two got real close.’
Now she looked over at him. ‘I guess you’ve been looking through some keyholes.’
Dillon smiled. ‘That’s what I thought.’
The nausea didn’t slip up on her; it attacked hard and fast, overwhelming her equilibrium, forcing her to lean against the wall for support as she gagged and coughed. Dillon moved to support her but she shoved him away, fighting for air. He eyed her with sudden concern.
‘You okay?’
She took a deep breath and nodded.
‘Whatever you say. But you don’t look okay to me, sister.’
Aaron surveyed the convicts who’d accompanied him — some nearby, others on the walkway above. All carried primed emergency flares which would ignite on hard contact.
‘Okay, listen up.’ All eyes turned to regard him attentively.
‘Don’t light this fire till I give you the signal. This is the signal.’
He raised his arm. ‘You guys got it? Think you can remember that?’
They were all intent on him. So intent that the man nearest the vertical air duct dropped the flare he’d been holding. He clutched at it, missed, and held his breath as it slid to the ledge near his feet.
His companion hadn’t noticed. Straining, he knelt to retrieve it, let out a sigh of relief. .
As the alien appeared behind the grate on which the flare lay poised precariously, and reached for him.
The man managed to scream, the flare flipping from his fingers to fall to the ground below.
Where it flowered brightly.
Aaron heard and saw the explosion simultaneously. His eyes widened. ‘No, goddamn it! Wait for the fucking signal! Shit!’
Then he saw the alien and forgot about the flames.
They spread as rapidly as the desperate planners had hoped, shooting down QTC-painted corridors, licking up air vents, frying soaked floors and walkways. In her own corridor Ripley heard the approaching flames and pressed herself against unpainted ground as the air vents overhead caught. A convict nearby wasn’t as fast. He screamed as heat ignited his clothing.
Morse rolled wildly away from the licking flames, in time to see the alien scuttle past overhead.
‘It’s over here! Hey, it’s here!’ No one had the inclination or ability to respond to his alarm.
It was impossible to keep track of half of what was happening. Injured men flung themselves from burning railings or dropped from the hot ceiling. Prisoner Eric saw the fire reaching for him and darted at the last possible instant into the safety of an uncoated service pipe, barely squeezing through in time to avoid the blast of fire that seared the bottoms of his feet. Another man died as the alien emerged from a steaming ventilation duct to land directly on him.
Running like mad, Aaron and one of the convicts raced for the waste disposal chamber, trying to stay ahead of the flames.
The assistant superintendent made it; his companion wasn’t quite as fast. . or as lucky. The fire engulfed but did not stop him.
Alien - 3 (aliens universe) Page 13
